Show HN: Try Ion before you buy – uses BluetoothLE, Node.js, websockets, jsmpeg | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Try Ion before you buy – uses BluetoothLE, Node.js, websockets, jsmpeg

tryion.lava.io

73 pointsbillylindeman61 comments

Looking at the kickstarter, there's something I think is missing. There's no point of reference for the thing's scale - I have absolutely no idea how big it is. Could you guys add a photo to make it clear?

EDIT: Thanks for the banana, that's a bit clearer. Though bananas have various sizes ;)

Good call, adding that to the FAQ now. It's 12" tall and 3.25" in diameter.

My only knowledge of inches is from subway, but 12" means the length of a footlong sub, so I have a better sense of scale now :)

12" is about a third of the length of a Bald Eagle or slightly shorter than the barrel of an M4-Carbine.

EDIT: I just measured and 12" is about 3 times the diameter of a McDonald's Quarter Pounder patty.

A bald eagle? Only unicorns here.

Check the feed. Banana for scale :)

I would be very glad if it did not give me the "unbecoming-woman" nickname. Other than that, demo seems very cool, appreciated.

Nicknames are random. I apologize on behalf of our server.

I know, just kidding, I know the server did not mean that :( It is nice too see that websockets scale well.

The server will be punished severely, rest assured.

F5 :P

Impressive demo. How did you go about the MPEG-1 stream server with so many concurrent users?

Thanks! We're using binary websockets to route the actual video frames. There's also an instance of haproxy sitting in front of everything. But our server is still choking every one in a while, heh.

Are you using ffmpeg? Gstreamer? We are working on a project to put nocturnal streaming robots in a museum in London and we've been trying out various toolchains to get low-latency live streams to clients, each with lots of pros and cons. Would be good to talk if you could. Ping us on twitter @theworkers

Yup, ffmpeg to a node.js script that is rebroadcasting over websockets. We tried 4-5 live streaming services and could not find one that had latency lower than 10-15 seconds (if not more).

Just curious, did you ever try MJPEG to node.js? I was trying to build something similar with really low latency streaming. Came to the same conclusions about the available services.

Got my latency down to < 1s (same city) with an IP cam with built-in MJPEG stream, served by node.js as an ever updating static jpg. On the client side I then used a simple requestAnimationFrame-script to update the image source as often as the client would allow.

This was actually the solution I almost went with, but found I could achieve a higher frame rate and lower bandwidth usage with jsmpeg.

We're located in Flint, Michigan and using a DigitalOcean box hosted in NYC. I haven't run any latency tests, but I'd ballpark the number to be in the 250-500ms range. I was blown away that it worked as well as it did.

Looks good! On the FAQ, it mentions that power is via a 2.1mm barrel jack, & US adapter is included. Do you have plans for a USB powered version?

We have thought about it, but we would need to either make a smaller version of the lamp or have less LEDs (a compromise we weren't willing to make). We pull close to 2A with the 40 LEDs right now. Most USB supplies and ports output around 0.5-1.0A.

I should also add, that's close to 2A when on full white. Most of the 'moods' on the lamp do not draw anywhere near this.

Fantastic idea. This is one of the best examples of market hacking I've ever seen.

I can't think of any real use I would ever have for one of these and I see crap like this every day here, on kickstarter, techcrunch or any other aggregator. I don't even own a smartphone or get service where I live.

And I want one right now.

Haha, we actually did think about this when building it. The smartphone notification feature is a major selling point, but we also wanted it to be useful without a phone.

The touch sensitive cap lets you cycle through all the 'moods'. A lot of friends that have seen it love it for the music moods alone (microphone picks up the audio in the room).

We'll also be adding in a feature that allows you to turn the lamp on to full white and back off just by holding the top (really nice if you need to get up in the middle of the night).

What's the control interface for the mobile apps? Is it bluetooth, embedded web server or what? If you make your API open I could probably whip up a web app for it so even schmucks like me without a smartphone could use the full feature set.

It's Bluetooth Low Energy. We wrote a very basic Node.js library we're using to control it right now. You can check out the code here: https://github.com/lavallc/ionode Documentation is yet to come, but it will be an open API.

One of these guys and a Linux PC is all you need http://www.iogear.com/product/GBU521/ We'll most likely open source the Try Ion code as well so you can build off that if you like =)

Actually, I can see managed services companies eating these up, High priority ticket comes in? Flashing red light in the support room.

Could you share some other similar devices you've seen?

They aren't all exactly analogous but they're at least in the same category.

http://www.amazon.com/Philips-431643-Personal-Wireless-Frust...

http://lifx.co/

http://www.smarthome.com/2672-222/INSTEON-LED-Bulb/p.aspx

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/588318042/luma-a-smartl...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ledpulse/led-pulse-an-e...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thingm/blink1-the-usb-r...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103326826/tangeez-tang...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flashy/flashy?ref=categ...

OK, I am sold. This is such a cool demo; I couldn't NOT buy this thing.

The page doesn't seem to say what this actually is

It appears to be a lamp, but other than that, I'm clueless too.

I would guess led tree beneath something frosted. Proof of concept as to what websockets are capable of. Oh, and how amazing javascript can be.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lavallc/ion-a-music-det...

kinda reminds me of that guy's web-controlled Christmas tree

For those of you interested, the speakers are currently playing DI.FM's Electro House channel. Let's get this drive-in-theater vibe going!

And now we're onto the Vocal Trance station.

Thanks for the flashback to my youth. I used to listen to the vocal trance station on DI.fm for hours on end.

Love to see that you guys are supporting Android from the start. Too many cool Kickstarter projects are iPhone first or iPhone only.

FWIK BTLE is pretty poorly supported on devices and even at the OS level on Android.

A year or two ago - definitely. But as of today, I would disagree. Apple has been shipping BTLE in their devices since the 4S. All flagship Android phones have been shipping with BTLE for over a year (with official SDK support added in 4.3). You can pickup a $10 USB BTLE dongle and it works out of the box with bluez (Raspberry Pi works great).

Android 4.3+ adoption is barely over 10%, while iOS support must be in the 90% range.

EDIT: actually 14.2% [1].

on "x% of 1 billion is a lot": it's still way less than 90% of 500m devices, and you're still frustrating the majority of your user base.

[1] http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

The last time I picked up a $10 BT dongle, it had "CSR 4.0" written on it but was neither CSR (Cambridge Silicon Radio) or 4.0. Any hints?

Heh, name and shame the supplier? I ordered one of those from Adafruit. It was noticeably of "Chinese street market" build quality, but works great with a Raspberry Pi.

Great demo! Loved the use of WebSocket for control and streaming back the jsmpeg.

Thank you! The author really deserves the credit here, we love how well it works. https://github.com/phoboslab/jsmpeg

How does this compare in brightness to a regular lamp/lightbulb?

It's on par with a 30-40W incandescent bulb. Plenty bright to light up a small room or read by.

I thought the banana said "For Sale". Makes sense now..

I keep getting dropped from the queue (3 times now). On Chrome.

Sorry about that. Just pushed a fix up to production. Our server was crying for a bit there ;)

How much is the half rotten banana going for?

12 lava coins.

Well, thank you. http://files.mzaweb.com/image/1f3t0d2b0L3q

you're very welcome mr wide-brain

This is really interesting.

Can I do this with my own Ion?

you will be able to controll it from our nodejs library + cheap usb dongle

https://github.com/lavallc/ionode

Might I add this code is VERY rudimentary at the moment. But yes, you will =)

Awesome. Thanks!

This is brilliant!

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

IM CRYING! SO AMAZING! _______________

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